Billion-dollar regs, six-toed cats and arroyos

Jan8,2013

Carter Wood

In Business Roundtable's latest CEO Economic Outlook Survey released in December, 35 percent of the CEOs who responded identified regulatory costs as their greatest cost-pressure for the next six months, followed by labor and health care costs. This was the first time that regulation topped the list of concerns; in the fourth quarter of 2011, CEOs ranked material costs first.

Reading through recent headlines, one finds plenty of reasons for the CEOs worries, from big ticket regulations to coal, caprice and cats.

On the Friday afternoon before Christmas, the administration released its delayed 2012 “Unified Agenda” of federal regulations. Rather than publish a spring and fall agenda, the custom every year since 1996, the White House opted for a late afternoon drop during the holidays.

The timing is perhaps less important than the contents of the new report. According to initial projections, the agenda contains $123.2 billion in possible regulatory costs for 2013 and at least 13 million paperwork burden hours.

What’s more, some entries lacked data typically included in the regulatory plan, and outlined in the Regulatory Flexibility Act. For example, new import security filings state $0 in capital and annual costs in the 2012 agenda. However, the 2011 agenda clearly stated costs could reach $7 billion annually. It’s not clear how widespread these omissions are in the 2012 agenda.

Georgia Power said Monday it will shut down 15 coal and oil-fired units, cutting nearly one-sixth of its power grid capacity to comply with federal rules aimed at reducing air pollution.

The move, which comes after the utility and parent Southern Co. spent years unsuccessfully fighting the regulations, further cuts coal out of the electricity mix of a company once known as the dominant provider of coal-fired electricity.

When Peter Smith tried to explain his actions, the Corps responded “Gallina Arroyo is a water of the United States” — though it is dry year-round save for the rare rain storm — and if the Smiths persisted, they would need to get a permit or face “legal action, including applicable penalties and fines.”

That’s courtesy of a federal government that has posted nearly 6,000 new regulations in the last three months, according to regulations.gov. Think about that the next time you’re tempted to put litter in its place...

[Pacific Legal Foundation] attorney Jennifer Fry says the case could set precedents on whether someone can take the Corps to court, what type of property the Corps has jurisdiction over and what its burden of proof is for declaring that jurisdiction.

In the 1800s, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warned that too many regulations can sap a nation's entrepreneurial spirit. Overregulation, he noted, "compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Regaining our nation's economic strength will require boundless energy, risk-taking and entrepreneurial spirit. If we are to recover, we cannot continue to suffocate families, employers, schools and hospitals beneath a crushing, endless avalanche of costly regulations.

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